Posts Tagged ‘israel’

At Bloomberg View, Stephen Milm suggests that Israel’s strategy for fighting tax evasion by persuading people about the benefits of taxation, and making payment easier, is something Greece could learn from.

For example, authorities found it exceedingly difficult to determine how much tax people in certain occupations should pay, given that they rarely kept books or accounts. The solution was to create “standard assessment guides” known as tahshivim, which allowed all people in a given occupation to be taxed at the same rate.

These guides, notes Likhovski, were “perceived as a way to increase the objectivity of the tax assessment process and even to involve groups of taxpayers in it.”

This was part of a much broader strategy. Reformers sought to involve the taxpayers themselves in tax policy. For example, the Israel Revenue established advisory committees staffed by local business owners who had first-hand knowledge of area taxpayers. These committees were charged with hearing complaints about the assessments of taxes and could recommend a revision in a taxpayer’s favor.

At the same time, the Israel Revenue circumvented organizations that opposed its reforms. When it encountered resistance from trade unions or business groups, the government sent mass mailings explaining its position and the obligations of taxpayers.

To get buy-in from the public, reformers even redesigned tax offices. Previously, visits to the taxman meant sitting in large rooms with lots of other grumpy people. Unhappiness, the Israelis concluded, is contagious, and they moved to a system where taxpayers would wait alone for a government representative, with whom they would have a one-on-one meeting. They also self-consciously designed offices with an eye toward minimizing conflict. These featured pleasing pictures on the walls, comfortable chairs and a host of other modest modifications aimed at changing how taxpayers viewed tax collectors.blockquote>

Open Democracy looks at the declining importance of Israel as an enemy to the Arab world, questions the extent of Russian support for the European far right, notes the insertion of Orthodox Christianity into public teaching in Russia, and notes the failures of political Islam in Tunisia.

Anti-Arab slogans and graffiti are widespread in Israel, and Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel, estimates that there are more than 50 Israeli discriminatory laws against Arabs. A new law making Israel the “nation-state of the Jewish people” that clearly discriminates against Arab citizens has already been passed by Israel’s cabinet. Dozens of Knesset members also support it.

This violent and irrational Israeli hatred and maltreatment of Arabs needs an explanation. In my view, it derives largely from the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. [. . .] To atone for this crime Europe encouraged the settlement of Holocaust survivors and other persecuted Jews in a faraway Middle Eastern country they did not know and whose people and culture were alien to them.

It was not the answer. In Palestine, the Jews were forced to acclimatise to an unfamiliar place and required to accept a new identity as “Israelis”. A Zionist history was created for them with the religious scriptures as a reference point. Their own past, despised by Zionism as assimilationist or passive in the face of Christian persecution, was to be discarded, and their mother tongues had to give way to a new language, Hebrew. Above all, they had to learn to be a majority when they had always been a minority. And all this in a short period of time as Israel was being rapidly established to defend against a hostile Arab environment that rejected it. That hostility was another challenge the Jewish immigrants had to face and that made all their other difficulties worse.

The solution?

The solution to this tortured situation lies in what may be called the Jewish right of return. Under this right, Europe would welcome back its previous Jewish citizens, at least those still alive, and their descendants, offer them compensation, fund their resettlement and provide jobs and housing. These costs could be defrayed against the EU’s current massive bilateral trade with Israel worth $36bn (with many trade agreements favouring the latter) and its generous grants to its scientists.

Germany is the model for this Jewish return. After reunification in 1990, it welcomed Jews to its towns and cities, with the result that an estimated 15,000 Israelis are now living in Berlin alone, which is experiencing a Jewish renaissance, and many more are applying for German citizenship. Other European states should follow suit, as should Arab countries with Jewish communities who had resettled in Israel.

Where can I begin?

Most of the countries of origin of Israel’s Jewish population–in central and eastern Europe, in the Middle East and North Africa, and beyond–are substantially less economically developed than Israel. Even in fast-developing central Europe, living standards still lag behind Israel’s, to say nothing of poorer countries like Romania, or Ukraine, or Yemen. There really is no economic incentive for Jewish immigration specifically targeted to ancestral countries of origin. Germany has attracted many tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants since reunification, but most of these Jews are migrants from the former Soviet Union and Germany is still much richer than even Poland or Hungary.

Are there non-economic incentives? I am very skeptical of this. In the case of central and southeastern European countries which belong to the European Union, getting an EU passport might well be an incentive for many Israelis. That is it. The old Jewish-Christian communities of central Europe have been almost entirely destroyed, and negative associations understandable remain strong. There is very little alive for potential Jewish immigrants to cling to.

Perhaps most importantly, the majority of Jews in Israel were born in Israel. Ancestral countries of origin are increasingly irrelevant in a mixed population, perhaps almost as irrelevant as they are in another country of recent mass immigration like Canada. Why should they leave their homeland for lands that offer very little that is attractive to them, and does so only at significant cost? A Jewish exodus from Israel may actually aggravate existential issues and Israel-Palestinian conflict: Would a Jewish population weakened by mass emigration and reduced to a hard core of isolated people be more tractable to the Palestinians, or less?

I may get what Karmi is saying. It would have been very nice of these genocides and forced migrations had not happened. They did though, changing things irrevocably and beyond hope of reconstitution. All we can do is live realistically within the world that the past has created.

io9 describes the survival of Italian futurist architecture in Asmara, capital of the former Italian colony of Eritrea, and notes how The Hot Zone created unhelpful myths about Ebola.

Al Jazeera notes complex problems surrounding Korean unification, notes the apparent normalization of Qatar’s relationship with its Arab neighbours, looks at the plight of Syrian students trapped in Lebanon, and notes the hostility of many in upstate New York to fracking and underground gas storage.

Bloomberg notes Russian criticism of Ukraine for cutting its financial links with its separatist eastern regions, notes the election of ethnic German Klaus Johannis to the Romanian presidency, notes issues of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel with mandatory military service, and notes a Swiss ballot to limit immigration driven by a desire to control urban sprawl.

CBC looks at the very unsettled mental state of Luka Magnotta at the time of his murder of Chinese student Jun Lin, notes how the hermit thrush makes use of musical structures known to humans to make its songs, and argues a recent Ontario court ruling granting First Nations parents the right to exempt their children from proper medical treatment does not serve them well.

MacLean’snotes the complexity of historical memories surrounding war, and argues that Toronto-style political divides might become quite common across Canada.

The National Post‘s Matt Gurney argues people should feel compassion for Franck Gervais, a man who pretended to be a Canadian soldier on television.

Open Democracy notes Spain’s desperation faced with growing Catalonian separatism, looks at growing support for various regional separatisms across Europe, and suggests that British opposition to the European Union is nonsensical since the country already has the powers it might want, by and large.

Universe Today notes concerns over the European Space Agency’s readiness to share data, or not, from its various probes, and argues that dark matter is much clumpier than ever thought.

Al Jazeera looks at Ello, considers the controversy over language fluency requirements in Navajo elections, looks at Malaysian criticism of a pro-dog event in that Muslim country, wonders what will happen to the Caucasus, looks at the issues of some religious minorities in American schools, examines the geopolitical challenges of falling oil prices, looks at Sioux problems with child custody in the United States, and notes that new British immigrants from the European Union contribute more than they cost.

Bloomberg suggests sanctions are starting to cause a Russian brain drain, looks at controversy over reports a Japanese kidnap victim died in North Korea in 1994, and suggests North Africa will become a key natural gas supplier to Europe.

Bloomberg view criticizes the patience of Sony shareholders in Japan, notes the Israeli prioritization of settlements over friends, provides recommendations on diminishing separatist movements, and looks at the role of immigration in possibly galvanizing the British desire to leave the European Union.

CBC notes that former Olympian Waneek Horn-Miller is suing Kahnawake council for its racial restrictions on residence, and notes Lynn Gehl suing in Ontario to get her status back.

The Inter Press Service suggests Israel is set to deport Bedouins from the West Bank, notes the plight of Pakistan’s Ahmadis, looks at the resettlement of Iraqi Christians in Jordan, and notes the departure of Kyrgyzstan’s teachers for higher-paying unskilled jobs.

MacLean’snotesVice media’s new television channel, looks at the association of Muslim converts with terrorism, and criticizes an egg-freezing program.